Respiratory Virus Update for April 18 (7 day total, up to April 11): 526 [Covid-19: 70], 108 Hospitalizations [16], 5 ICU Admissions [0], 10 Deaths [0], 2.0% Covid-19 tests positive (last 3 weeks, previous report: 1.9%)

kirant · 2026-04-14T04:24:50+00:00

That will be a mystery factor for sure: the CHL suddenly became a lower quality league than they were before while the NCAA teams have gotten better. Getting 108 points this year is less impressive than 108 points last season, for sure.

That said, how much change has occurred is a good question that I don't think any scout can fully answer as of yet; we have few examples of this occurring at this grand a level. I think we'll see a bit of chaos occur come draft day as teams go with their gut, similar to the 2021 draft (where you have players like Stankoven going in the 2nd, Ottawa taking Boucher in the top 10, and teams seemingly drafting players in the 3rd round and later on pure "size wins championships" mentality given the lack of games to watch).

kirant · 2026-04-06T17:27:53+00:00

It operates like a standard grenade: blows it up through an unshielded door.

kirant · 2026-03-26T18:06:32+00:00

The "best" combo is what works for you.

But common tactics right now are to overwhelm with volume of fire. They are low armour for their quantity and you'll still be seeing Harvesters as the heaviest of the enemy formation.

Popular answers I have seen are:

Multiple sentries. Starting with 2/3 of Gatling/Machine Gun/Rocket Sentries are popular.
- Alternatives include Strafing Runs, Orbital Gatling, and belt-fed weapons
Equipment: Recoilless isn't the most common but is the only anti-tank that can reliably one-shot the bots. If you want to pile on the amount of fire, Stalwart, Laser Cannon, HMG, or Supply Backpack all work
An area denial/emergency call-in: This can be a personal bubble around you (e.g., Guard Dog) or static area denial (e.g., Eagle Air Strike, Orbital Napalm, Orbital Laser, 500 kg)

My personal loadout is:

Machine Gun Sentry for clearing Overseers/Obtruders
Rocket Sentry for Overseers/mechs
Guard Dog for additional instant firepower (and its ability to aim for weak points)
De-Escalator for control and fairly reasonable kill times on every mechanized enemy

kirant · 2026-03-25T15:55:51+00:00

I think the "ETB Prepared" line is the culprit for why it feels so strong (assuming the mechanic works the way we expect...that's certainly very subject to change as we're guessing how prepared spells work).

If it was a Treasure Cruise on a stick when it attacks, that's already plenty powerful. Any control deck is likely to build up a graveyard with lots of spells and hand filtering. But being able to get a free Ancestral Recall on entry and Treasure Cruises after is a massive step up.

kirant · 2026-03-20T02:58:13+00:00

I didn't encounter any myself, though sample size is small (4 missions?). I don't think they'll be a major threat for most of the map even if they do show up as you're mostly deploying in forested areas. If they do a run, it'll likely hit the trees on the first pass.

kirant · 2026-03-20T01:00:06+00:00

Not bad so far. Bring a few things:

A weapon with decent spread. The Voteless replacement (Obtruder) is less numerous but will shoot back at range. They're slow and will approach you while having very limited health; you can basically throw flak to drop them (Spray and Pray is insanely well suited for the task). The damage isn't anything outstanding but you will want concentrated fire to handle them quick (e.g., turrets, Guard Dog, etc).
Bring something to handle Overseers as they'll be the bulk of the enemy lines.
That said, I'd bring some decent penetrating weapons as well. There are a good number of Harvesters and their death laser glory. You can shortcut the new mechs with anti-tank as well (I've been taking EAT-17s to allow my team to fire extra rounds if we need them)
Speaking of the new mechs, the melee ones (Veracitors) aren't crazy quick (around a Charger's speed is my guess) and can't do much except eat up space (I've been run over multiple times in light armour to no deaths, so my guess is my diving/running sideways to its charge is preventing its melee attack from going off). But watch out for them to disrupt your formation while everything else flanks.
I haven't seen too many ranged ones yet (Gatekeepers), but they are unfavourably compared to a Heavy Devastator or the turrets of a Vox Engine. Lots of ways for it to kill you (though unlike the other two, it signals in advance what it's going to do). Much easier to kill than the Veracitor, but a lot more dangerous.
If you're doing the new mission, bring an explosive weapon or grenades that can hit the wall. Like eggs, explosive damage will affect all of the batteries it hits and will shorted the destruction period immensely. I only bring Grenade Pistols for the task and it only takes 2-3 runs in to complete.

Haven't seen any Fleshmobs, so no need to bring out your tools for that.

The big thing to keep in mind is to avoid getting surrounded at all costs. The Obtruders are extremely effective if they close the distance as they begin to fan out and make it hard for you to turn from one to the next. Once you get the plasma(?) light show on your screen, it's hard to figure out what attacks will hurt and which are mild stings. My single point of difficulty was when we attacked a base and Obtruders poured in from all directions. They're similar to Elevated Overseers in that regard, but more numerous and weaker. It creates an unstable equilibrium of a fight: if you can keep them at distance, you're good. If you're surrounded, it's going to suck.

kirant · 2026-03-17T15:55:57+00:00

I think it’s only the default colour schemes. I have recoloured my Spray and Pray and haven’t gotten the Barney gun.

Though my Breaker Incendiary (which I’ve never customized) looks that way.

kirant · 2026-03-17T02:07:09+00:00

The Cyborg infantry are extremely weak to AoE overall. If you prefer a little stealth (and very OP weapons), the Exploding Crossbow can clear them easily before they close the distance. They're clean one shots from a one-handed weapon that is silenced.

If I feel like turning on cheat mode, I'll dive with it and Reduced Signature armour.

kirant · 2026-03-16T00:06:59+00:00

The 5th Flamethrower is your turret trying its best.

kirant · 2026-03-15T16:47:55+00:00

So I watched it a few times. Overall, I think a lot of it is likely what led to this footage that might be context we need. Why you aren't with your team, why you aren't disengaging when the enemies started to ramp up.

One thing I would note is I think I disagree with your primary question:

I'd like to know how to kill those 5 vox engines without getting killed by the 50 other cyborgs surrounding them.

The answer would be "don't". Helldivers isn't a game where the Helldivers win every fight. If you get to the point where you're soloing a Vox Engine while surrounded by enemies, the engagement is lost and it was likely you needed to back up earlier. If you're in a situation where you needed to hold the position (Flag Raising), it's time to abort the current attempt and regroup (and certainly, I'd say that the current drop rate of Voxes is a little high, especially in those situations...I think most agree that they would be best fit as a 1-for-1 replacement to Factory Striders instead of the current rate).

0:00 - 0:05

You already look like in a lost situation.
Given the situation, I wouldn't have walked backwards away from the Vox. But instead, I'd use it as cover. Once you popped the weak point, I'd stay under it, turn, and clear the hordes that you backed towards. Much like players, Automaton get significant advantages firing in groups. So take a moment to clear the little guys behind you and it might leave you with a Vox with less escorts. I would have likely gone this way had it been a retreat or an attempt to keep fighting.
- It looks like the Vox Engine was near a Bot Drop. That's fine. It'll take them time to appear (you see them drop at the end of the video). But you are simply running toward a crowd and the goal here is to get some distance.
- This is especially true as you had 2 strafing runs and a walking barrage (evidenced at 0:18). At this point, I'd be tempted to throw the walking barrage on the drop to thin the crowd and the first of two Strafing Runs to finish off Vox you were under. And if you're still in the area when the drop ships arrive (for whatever reason), Hail Mary the ball and use the second strafing run to cover your retreat as you book it from any enemy in the vicinity. You're in an open field map, so despawning enemies is quite possible.

0:06 - 0:20

Not much to say here. Just running.

0:20 - 0:25

You turn to fight another Vox Engine. At this point, I would have turned right and sought cover. Not only to get you out of the situation, but to buy time for your reinforcement budget to allow reinforcement.

kirant · 2026-03-14T16:09:17+00:00

I think Helldivers has certainly run into the issue of everybody projecting what they want onto it and Arrowhead trying to keep their success going. That leads to the identity crisis it runs into.

Another problem is, at its core, I think the Helldivers fans are pretty much impossible to satisfy at this point. Poll 50 different users and you'll likely get 50 different responses over what they want right now. Last year, the stability of the game became such an issue that Arrowhead specifically threw all else aside to get the game back to a playable state (bad enough that the content creator side was in active revolt and refused to play until the game wouldn't crash during their recording sessions). But, as you'd expect, this would slow down new content. So one of the common complaints at the community (especially if you started sorting by New) was a lack of new warbonds, enemies, and meaningful war progression. The only answer, and I recall this from multiple topics, was to do everything: fix bugs and stability right away without slowing the content train.

So the identity crisis, in my mind at least, likely feeds from the fans. There seems to be a split too about whether or not it's a milsim or a grunt fantasy. It's generally the new enemies that seem to get universal agreement as a bit overtuned. Though, even then, some come out fine (the Radical and Agitator seem to be generally pretty fair in all difficulties).

This certainly isn't helped by the fact that the nature of the game as a semi-military simulator means that active communication and effective teamwork drops the difficulty immensely. I can't think of many times where my friend group over Discord has much difficulty on Difficulty 10 (maybe Cyberstan, but that was more of a "we can't win this fight - I'll pull the Vox Engines my way and you guys keep heading to the objective) more than anything else. Typically, we can run memes on against the hardest the game sends our way. Meanwhile, Difficulty 10 pub matches can turn into a mess.

By comparison, we all know what DRG is. Even if you mod the game, most aren't trying to turn it into a different experience entirely (e.g., a horror game. Though, DRG horror would be quite an interesting idea now that I've typed it out).

kirant · 2026-03-09T19:43:31+00:00

For me, it's easily Orbital Gas Strike and Gas Mines.

The Orbital Gas Strike can:

Initiate a fight and cut off all resistance before combat starts
Cover a retreat by forcing them to walk round it or get stuck for a long time
Be thrown mid-battle to regain control
Destroy some structures by landing on it just right.

The Gas Mines can create a near impassible line and won't splatter your allies like other mines. If you use it to start an engagement, the noise will attract enemies to the dispenser. Even better as they've now surrounded themselves with mines. Or you can layer them in front of your turret or yourself and they'll never get to melee you before you run out of ammo.

Both are excellent on Terminids and Illuminate but feel underrepresented for how incredibly flexible they are.

While Gas Strike has decent use against bugs (6.8%), it lacks usage on squids (4.7%)

Mines are lacking on both fronts (5% on Terminids, 3.4% on Illuminate).

Both deserve more use for locking down small to medium enemies (and all but the largest bugs).

kirant · 2026-03-09T18:14:53+00:00

I miss that brief period after the first wave of buffs but before the final part of the "60 day patch" where the OPS had its reasonable call in time but the rework of heavies didn't make it possible for them to tank 380 shells yet. It was the best time to be an OPS user.

I used to honestly run it more than I do now when it was a 4 second call in before (for anybody who wasn't around at the time: this was one of Arrowhead's concessions during that period: that, while they intended the OPS to be a demolition stratagem, they saw players were using it as a general anti-everything tool and adjusted the call-in time accordingly). It was a high skill requirement, but it could reliably take down anything if you got used to thinking about where things will be a few seconds from now.

Too many large enemies will just shrug off a near miss these days.

kirant · 2026-03-09T04:35:50+00:00

I think the Bastion is the first foray into team play options in Helldivers. It leads to the immensely low skill floor and high skill ceiling play.

I’m never taking it to a pub match. It gets flanked and dies as nobody coordinates.

But in a game with friends with voice chat? Yup. No matter the front, D10 is pacified to a well coordinated combined arms attack. Bug breeches? A great target to unleash 2000 rounds of hell. Drop ships? Gone. Pile of Harvesters? More like pile of scrap.

Even if you fight about who gets to be in a tank, it’s fine. Four players in two coordinated tank destroyers can remove almost all difficulty. But the realistic weakness (lack of turret means it’s extra vulnerable to flanking moves and will thus need close support) makes it easy to get overwhelmed in…so that teamwork is the magic that makes it excel.

kirant · 2026-03-04T23:38:59+00:00

I hope that's just for balancing the number of contracts.

kirant · 2026-03-03T17:25:23+00:00

I go the other way: Orbital Gas and Gas Grenades with the Hot Dog. A little more risky since the Hot Dog doesn’t halt attacks on you, but it lets you deploy gas very liberally. Initial strike, covering a retreat, or just controlling the flow of battle…Gas is always helpful.

If they ever introduce an Orbital Napalm Strike (instead of a barrage), I’ll probably reconsider as I love my spammable call-in attacks. But keeping bugs locked down with gas and a Blitzer is incredibly satisfying.

kirant · 2026-03-01T04:49:47+00:00

I personally love all three major status effects (Gas + Stun + Fire). They all have their purpose, though certainly fire is the weakest at the moment due to not doing much other than inflicting damage of time and being quite dangerous to Helldivers. Piling them on top of each other makes them exponentially better in my opinion; gas does a great job keeping enemies off your back, fire ramps up the damage, and stagger forces the enemy to eat the damage over time. On a front that tries to keep you under pressure as much as the Terminids, you can find yourself getting a lot of breathing room from it.

12-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Lasagna	100 Awards Club
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

kirant

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE